Past, Present, Future
by A Polar Bear
Summary: If an evil threatens to destroy the world, heroes will rise to save it. But if the world threatens to destroy itself, then what can be done? A three part story of the Mother Universe setting.
1. Chapter 1

_What has happened?_

Ness strolls through Onett, peering around at the buildings and offices that have sprung up in his home town in the past few years. He used to know every building, every house, every street corner, every cement block of every sidewalk in his town. But now, seemingly out of nowhere, all these...new, big city corporate structures are dominating the once clear and beautiful skyline.

_How are things changing so fast?_

With more buildings came more people. In the past, Ness could point to any random person walking along the road and identify them on the spot. He knew everybody and was known by everybody in Onett. But now, seemingly out of nowhere, all these...new people, wearing fancy clothes and driving big smoke spewing cars, none too friendly either...

_Is this the world we saved?_

Sure, even back then there were imperfections with the world. The Sharks who stole his lunch money when he was young, the weird Hippies and Old Ladies, the incompetent police and even more incompetent mayor. But he still loved it all, loved it all so much that he willingly went on a near suicidal journey to save it from a horrifying alien.

And fuuuuck no it was no easy task. The story Ness told everyone was only of the good times, of him meeting new friends, visiting exotic places, learning cool new superpowers. But that was only a small part of the whole quest he endured. He never told anyone about the suffering, the exhaustion, hunger, humiliation, homesickness... He never told anyone about the torturous and mentally breaking battles against unforgiving aliens and mutants, the agony of taking hit after hit from punches to PSI and everything in between, and watching his companions suffer through the same.

And of course, facing a monster who couldn't be touched, who would not succumb to any attack, who managed to make him writhe in pain even though he was inside a robot's body. And even after miraculously defeating him with the power of Paula's prayer, the battle played over and over again in Ness's nightmares, and haunted the hero until this day.

But it's all worth it, right? He had saved the world from destruction, and prevented his friends, family, and millions of others from a doomed fate, right?

_But this is not the world we saved._

Ness takes a deep breath, and almost gags. The stench of gasoline and smoke wracked his lungs. And it is easy to see why, Ness is walking by a brand new gas and car repair station, smack dab in the middle of where the old baseball park was.

A flurry of shadows zip over the pavement. Looking up, Ness spots a trio of seagulls chasing a fourth one, which has a large piece of pizza crust in its beak. Seagulls are not native to Onett, which is as far from the ocean side as possible. They came with this new string of modernization. More people, more leftovers, more food. They pushed the native birds out of their homes, even the spiteful crows. Now as Ness wakes up every morning he was no longer greeted with the sounds of chirping birds, but with the ugly cawing of gulls, accompanied with honking of distant cars.

As he's looking up, Ness bumps into someone walking the other direction.

"Watch where the fuck you're going kid!"

He doesn't even bother looking to see who it is, he can tell from the voice that it isn't someone he would know. Or care to know for that matter.

"Hey! You listenin'?"

Ness merely walks around the person, not acknowledging having ever heard anything.

"...ungrateful brat."

This makes him angrier than he expected, as he is now fighting the urge to disintegrate that person with _Rockin'_. He's not the ungrateful one here! He saved the goddamn world, made sure that person's sorry ass would live to see this day! That guy should be bent over, wiping the dust off his fucking shoes with his _tongue_!

Ness realizes his teeth are clenched. He takes a deep breath, trying to ignore the putrid smell of oil, and exhales. It is very uncharacteristic of him to get this angry, but he notices that he has become more and more irritable more and more frequently.

It's seemingly a rising trend, increasing amount of increasingly rude people, tainting his quiet suburban town. Ness fears he is falling under their influence, aware of his personality shifting to becoming more aggressive, selfish, and pissed off.

_Why am I becoming like this?_

While the Eagleland Government claim all this urbanization is for the benefit of the country, to help the people live a more prosperous life, Ness struggles to find what needed changing to begin with. He's travelled the world, all across the country, and everything seemed fine after the Giygas event. Now he hardly recognized the quaint little town he grew up in and called home.

_Why am I so opposed to change?_

There was no arguing with statistics, in the past few years, Eagleland has become an absolute powerhouse of wealth, has the highest living standard on Earth, and is continuing this trend of growth. The government is expanding its influence all around. They've discovered oil reserves in Scaraba, and have begun drilling. Factories are being set up in Foggyland and Chommo, creating jobs and new markets.

But none of this sits right with Ness, and what frustrates him is he doesn't know why. Sure, there was the case of turning his town into a mini Fourside, but why can't he look past it and accept all these bright new possibilities like everyone else? It seems like everyone's happy but him.

_It's a gut feeling. Something is not right with all this change...but what?_

He walks up to a double glass door. They slide open to allow him in. He's immediately blasted with overly cool air from the AC, and considering he is wearing the same striped T-shirt, shorts, and cap he always wore, it feels utterly uncomfortable.

"Hello! Welcome to the store, sir, please take your time to browse through our enormous selection!"

It's all incredibly fake, the smile on the lady's face, her overly girlish and cheery tone, those size 30 boobs and rope thin figure. Ness misses the old department store, where the cashier knew his name and what he wanted to buy as soon as he walked in. But now, it has been replaced by this massive warehouse of objects so shiny he needs sunglasses to see properly.

_But I'm supposed to like urban things. Right?_

It's strange. Ness is a boy who wears top of the line clothing, has all the best baseball equipment, plays the best video games, and stuffs his face with hamburgers. So from that logic, wasn't he supposed to be excited that a store which sells all of the above opened practically at his doorstep? He no longer needs to teleport to Twoson for the newest game release, and burgers are as cheap as can be in comparison to the old restaurant.

Then what is the explanation for his recent lost in interest for all those? Hamburgers don't taste as good anymore, and he can't play a video game for longer than an hour. Forget baseball, the field is paved over and turned into a gas station. He doesn't care that he's not wearing the most 'in' clothing.

_Why. Am. I. So. Unhappy!?_

He almost screams out loud. He's supposed to be this adorable, bright, always cheery boy who's modest about the fact that he saved the world. Not some...stuck up, pent up bag of frustration.

Ness makes up his mind, as soon as he's done with the one item shopping list his mom gave him, he is teleporting to Paula's doorstep, then Jeff's lab's doorstep, then Poo's Palace's doorstep. He needs to get together with his closest friends and work this out.

After 10 minutes of getting lost in the isles just for a bottle of steak sauce, he steps out of the store, takes a moment to enjoy the warm sunshine after freezing his balls off inside, and prepares to head home...

"No! No, let go...let go!"

...or not. Ness spots the lady across the street getting her flashy purse snatched from her by a man covered in complete black getup. He sighs.

The robber with purse in hand flees the scene, the lady yelling after him. He ploughs through other pedestrians on the sidewalk. But then out of nowhere, a fist connects with his nose, and he drops to the ground.

Ness stares down at the pathetic robber clutching his nose. It was disgusting, seeing such weak, spineless people committing crimes. He should be glad Ness isn't carrying his baseball bat.

The robber looks up frantically, afraid he has been caught by the police, but after seeing it was some scrawny kid that punched him, his face changes into a snarl. He gets up, and rockets a balled up hand towards the kid's face. Ness calmly raises a palm and catches the fist. He briefly enjoys the look of desperation on the robber's face as he tries to work out how this kid is overpowering him. Then he twists the robber's hand, making him flip over and onto his back. He then calmly picks up the purse to return it to the owner.

"Oh my goodness!"

Ness watches the lady whip the purse out his hands, and starts quickly flipping through its contents to make sure nothing was missing, all the while mumbling to herself.

"I thought small towns like this didn't have heinous crime...now I'll be late for my meeting...goodness me such an uncivilized backwater piece of garbage town this is..."

Once she finishes looking through the purse, she slings it over her shoulder and briskly walks away, still muttering angrily under her breath. Ness just stares after her, frozen to the spot. Nothing, not even a word of thank you to the kid who fought to get her purse back.

He turns around and heads for home once more, but finds his path blocked by the same robber he just beat the snot out of.

And this time he has a gun in his hand.

There is a split second before Ness fully recognizes the situation and is about to put up a physic shield.

But too late. A loud bang cuts through the sounds of Onett traffic, followed by terrified screams of pedestrians and seagulls taking off from their perches.

Ness is used to pain. Compared to the beatings he got during his adventure, a gunshot wound to the stomach is nothing. But that doesn't mean he's immune to injury. Blood is leaving his head fast, he finds himself unable to focus to perform a Lifeup spell. Fuzzy black is pressing into the corners of his vision.

The last thought that passes through Ness's mind is how much he hates everything.

He hates that robber for being the fucking asshole he was, he hates the lady for being such a bitch and getting her shit taken from her, he hates all these new people coming in to his town, he hates that the last image he would perhaps ever see is the new office buildings and cars that crowded into his once peaceful Onett. He hates that everything was changing.

But most of all he hates himself, for feeling all this hate, for saving a world that has turned its back on him, for becoming the strongest person alive on the planet just to die to some random dick with a gun. He hates what his life has become.

He blacks out.

...

_Am I dead?_

As natural as a thought can be for a person to wake up after taking a bullet through the stomach. Ness quickly deduces that if he is able to formulate coherent thought, he's probably either in the hospital, or the afterlife.

As it turns out, neither. As he opens his eyes, he discovers he's lying at a beach. The beach was near the top of his list of strange places to wake up in after getting shot by a robber. He sits up, but regrets the action immediately as a splitting headache takes over.

The next thing he observes is the fact he's wearing pajamas, his usual striped light blue and white PJ's that he sleeps in. But the only other place he's ever had them on was in his Magicant.

Ness looks around. So is this Magicant? A good indication would be to look for large carrots growing out of the ground and eagle like men. But all he can see is beach. The sand seems to stretch forever in one direction, and water infinitely in the other. The pale blue sky touches the bright sand and water in a perfect straight line.

If this is Magicant it sure has changed since his last visit. It's become more dull. Ness pauses to reflect on that. Does that mean he has become a boring person? Oh God.

Gingerly, Ness stands up, brushing fine sand off his PJ's. He puts a hand to his stomach, and winces. The sharp pain spikes through his body like a jolt of electricity, and he's received quite a few of those. Short story is that Paula can't take a joke sometimes.

He lifts his pajamas, and is slightly disturbed by the fresh, but not bleeding bullet hole that...he twists to look at his back...goes straight through him. As if he needs more indication, he is now certain this place is not the normal world.

"Where am I?"

That voice catches him completely off guard, making him jump a little. Spinning around, he comes face to face with a person who dressed eerily like him.

Ness remembers his first time to Magicant, and meeting his younger self. Suffice to say it was an odd experience. But he immediately can tell this person is not him, even though he had black hair, wore a striped blue and yellow shirt and jean shorts, along with a similar red cap. His facial features are slightly different, with a broader and more rounded face, brown eyes opposed to his purple ones. Also, he is wearing his cap backwards, something Ness wouldn't be caught dead doing.

So who is he, and where did he come from? There are literally no places to enter without being seen, short of falling from the sky or phasing in.

The new appearance studies Ness for a moment, then smiles slightly.

"Heh, dude, you're in your PJ's."

Fucking hell. Of course that is the first thing he points out.

"Who are you?" Ness asks impatiently.

"I'll tell you once you tell me where the hell I am."

Ness does not like the testy tone this kid talks with.

"You're outta luck then, I've got no idea what this place is."

"Well that sucks. You know how you got here, buddy?"

Might as well tell him.

"Well, the short version is that I got shot in the stomach, blacked out, and woke up here." Ness says.

Suddenly the other boy's face turned dark, and the smile vanishes from his face. That's usually an indication of bad news. Ness knows he'll regret asking, but...

"Why? Is that bad?"

He's not sure how, but Ness can sense a feeling of pity and sadness emulating from this other kid who dresses like him. Here comes the bad news...

"I'm not sure," the kid says. He pauses, and sighs. "Firstly, my name's Ninten."

"Oh, cool name bro."

"And I'm dead."

Ness freezes.

"...you're dead?"

"...yeah. I've been dead a damn long time, too. No idea how I ended up here, but...yeah..."

He doesn't need Ninten's pitying look to understand the implications. If Ninten is indeed dead, then does that mean... Ness swallows, not quite ready to believe it yet.

_Why did this have to happen?_


	2. Chapter 2

_It can't be true. It just...can't._

Ness closes his eyes, wishing with all his willpower for him to be somewhere else when he opens them up again. Anywhere else.

He opens them up.

Nothing changes.

_This can't be it! _

He puts a hand on his chest, directly above where his heart is.

It's not beating.

_Why isn't it beating?_

He refuses to believe this is his final destination. He looks around at the sand and sea that stretches forever to all directions. Eternity in this suffocating, bland world. He begins to panic.

"What are you doing?" Ninten asks, tilting a capped head at Ness.

Ness does not answer, he continues to scramble around, turning in every direction, pinching himself, violently shaking his head. He drops all dignity, he doesn't care what he must do. His face is panic stricken. He looks like a small child who has lost his mother.

He spins to face Ninten. "How did you get here?"

"What?"

Ness trots up to his look alike, and grabs him on the shirt collar. Ninten moves to shake him off, but the wide eyes and look of utter disbelief and hopelessness on Ness's face is so pitiful that he can't bring himself to do anything.

"Tell me! If you got in here there must be some way out! I can't just stay here forever! I can't just die! Please! Help me..."

Sadly, Ninten does not have the answer. He shakes his head.

Ness slowly released his grip on Ninten's polo shirt and drops to his knees. He puts one hand on his stomach where he was shot. He does the only thing left to do.

He despairs.

Far out over the water, unbeknownst to either of the boys, a cover of grey clouds begins to quietly move in.

_...it's not fair..._

It's such a foreign concept, really, death. Ness realizes that he had constantly faced the prospect of dying during his adventure, but never dwelled on it, thinking in his own arrogance that it would never happen to...well, to someone like _him. _ Even when facing Giygas, he was dominated by fear, but fear of pain and failure, not death. He was a kid trying to save the world with his 3 other friends, would fate really be cruel enough to cut his life short then?

_...it's not fair..._

But now... he doesn't even know where to begin, the ramifications are overwhelming to think about. What would his family think? His friends? What about the rest of the world? Lingering on the thought made fresh tears well up. Mostly he's grieving that he will never see those he cared about ever again, but a small portion of the despair is caused by the thought that perhaps outside of his close family and friends, nobody else would even care...

_...it's not fair..._

"Hey."

The voice comes from close beside him. Ness turns with a stony expression, despite the salty water running down his cheeks. Ninten had taken a seat beside him.

Ness sighs and turns back around. "I'm screwed, aren't I?" He mumbles, voice crackling.

"...listen, man, I know it's hard, but trust me, it gets easier." Ninten tries in an earnest voice. "I mean, everyone goes through death eventually, right, so-"

"Yeah, cause you got a fucking PH.D in how to die, don't you?"

Ness didn't mean to sound like such a dick, but it just came out like that.

_What's wrong with me?_

"Hey, asshole, I'm trying to help you, but if you wanna just sit here and roll around in your own pity it's none of my fucking problem."

Ness hears shuffling, Ninten is leaving. He is about to leave him, alone, in this desolate, God knows where place. Suddenly it becomes blatant just how much he needs this other kid beside him.

"No wait!"

Ninten feels a hand grip his arm. He turns his head.

"Please...don't leave me here...I-I'm sorry. Please don't leave me alone..."

The tear tracks, the hastily covered desperation in his voice, the determined yet pleading look on his face, it is enough to send Ninten on an all expense paid guilt trip to empathy-land.

"I don't know what to do..." Ness continues, unable to wall up all the emotion anymore. "I wasn't supposed to end up like this...you gotta help me man..."

_I'm just a kid..._

A brief pause.

Then Ninten does something surprising, he slowly turns around and pulls Ness into a gentle hug. Ness becomes wide eyed.

"...I'm sorry. I'm sorry this happened to you." The voice is barely a whisper, but it rings loud and clear in Ness's head. He can tell that Ninten is being genuine, he can tell that Ninten understands what he is going through.

Then all the thoughts and feelings catch back up to him. He is now dead. He will never return to the world of the living, never return to his parents, his sister, his friends, ever again.

He buries his forehead onto Ninten's shoulder, and silently sobs, hoping he would feel better if he lets it all out. He cries unashamedly, for things like pride, dignity, and innocence would not ever matter to him anymore.

_...it's not fair...but then again...it never was..._

-01210-

The grey clouds have grown, and are moving closer to the two boys' location. They look like two grains of black among a carpet of gold and sapphire.

Ness sits on the sand cross legged, still in his PJ's. His near doppelganger Ninten observes the featureless surroundings from beside him. He soon spots the blotch of grey weather on the horizon heading for them. He frowns.

"Ninten?"

"Yeah?"

"If ya don't mind, can I ask you a question?" Ness quietly asks as he picks at his reddish eyes with a sleeve. He sniffs.

"Yeah, go ahead."

"...what was it like for you when you died?"

Ness can feel Ninten stiffen. The boy does not answer for a while. Ness turns back around.

"...I don't remember." Ninten finally says. "For some reason, the memory is fuzzy."

_Heh, fuzzy. Like fuzzy pickles._

Ness sneaks in a quick smile at his own retarded joke. Then turns back to pry at Ninten.

"What, you mean like, it's a big blurb, or what?"

Ninten shakes his head, the bill of his cap waving around. "No, not really like that, I think it's just my memory's fading. I did die a couple thousand years ago, after all."

"Oh all right then." Ness's intention is to try to figure out whether this world here is his final destination or not. It is clear when Ninten appeared here that he wasn't originally in this place before, so maybe the spirits of the dead are supposed to end up somewhere different. He subconsciously rubs at his bullet hole. He wonders how Ninten died. His new friend of the afterlife looks no older than him, so there must...be...

_Wait...couple THOUSAND years ago?_

"Dude, did you say you died _thousands _of years ago?" Ness flabbergasts.

Ninten lets out a deep breath, slumping forward. "Yeah, yeah I did."

It seems unimaginable. Dead for such a long time. Yet, here he still seems so...normal, like a regular ol' kid.

"How did you pass all these years without being bored out of your mind?" After all, Ness has spent all of probably an hour or so here, and he's already feeling the torture from the lack of diversity in this realm.

Ninten shrugs. "I dunno. Time isn't really a thing once you're dead. To be honest, these thousands of years passed by like nothing. A year, a day, a second, there's really no difference once you're dead..."

Another thoughtful pause.

"...it's really different from being alive." Ninten laments.

_What I would give to live again..._

"Well, I'm surprised people from so far back in time still wear such nice, non medieval clothes." Ness comments, trying to lighten the mood and distract himself from thinking too much about how he regrets everything.

That much is true, Ninten's threads were pretty nice, but that may just be Ness's bias towards blue and yellow polo shirts and baseball caps talking.

Ninten picks at his own collar, looking down at it. "Well, this is pretty regular for 1997 standards..."

Ness blinks. Surely he heard wrong.

"1997?"

"Yeah."

"...but...I...is that the year you died?"

"...yeah, it is."

"..."

"Why? What's wrong?"

"...it's 1995 when I died..." Ness says.

There's a clear flaw in logic right? Ninten can't have died in 1997, and thousands of years later, meet up with a dead Ness in 1995. It makes no sense.

But this flaw doesn't seem to baffle Ninten. Instead, the look on his face turns curious, observant. He stares at Ness until the latter begins to feel a bit self conscious.

"Dude, can't you see there's something wrong with sensible continuity here?" Ness tries to bring the point back up.

Ninten doesn't answer, preferring to keep looking at Ness.

"Hey! You okay?"

"...so this is what people from the new world are like..."

The words were so quiet Ness would not have heard if the world they are in isn't so dead silent.

"What do you mean?" Ness begins to feel irritation creep in. He never likes not knowing things.

"...it makes sense..." Ninten looks up at Ness, with a face expressing something between relief and disbelief.

"_What makes sense?!"_

"That your time period and mine are different periods."

"What?"

"I died in 1997 of my time period, before the Dark Dragon event. You died in 1995, in the period _after _the Dark Dragon event. That's the only explanation..."

Ninten lets out a rather biting laugh, then lies back onto the fine sand.

"So the world managed to build itself back up and survive a thousand, nine hundred, ninety five years after Lucas pulls the final needle." He whispers. "Wonder if that's a good or bad thing..."

The explanation makes Ness feel like he stepped out of one maze and landed in an even bigger one. Lucas? Needle? Dark Dragon? _What?_

A loud crack of thunder ferociously shatters the calm atmosphere, making both boys jump. A pause, then the rest of the thunder rumbles out in its deep rolling symphony. The billowing storm clouds have moved much closer now. The pure tone of rain landing in seawater can be heard.

"Where did that come from?" It seems strange how a massive storm system could move in unnoticed.

"I saw it earlier, but didn't think it would blow in so fast." Ninten comments.

Another chain of rumbling, this time louder. The storm is moving in quickly. And it's pretty clear there's not shit that can be done to avoid getting rained on.

_How appropriate. _

"Well, I'm not looking forward to taking a shower, but I have no idea how to get out of this world, so looks like I'm screwed." Ninten mutters, still lying on the ground.

"Yeah...wish it would go away..." Ness does sincerely want the storm to disappear, he is not in the mood to be soaked.

And just like that, the towering stack of clouds seems to be...dissipating... Ness and Ninten watch in fascination as the storm, practically on top of them, slowly melted into the azure atmosphere until not a trace of it could be seen again. The world was left with once again nothing but sea, sand, and sky.

"...uhh, that works, I guess." Ness deadpans.

"Yeah, otherwise I would've had to use a PSI Shield to cover myself."

Ness spins his head so fast he's surprised it didn't detach from his neck.

"You said PSI."

A bit taken aback by the sudden reaction, Ninten nods.

"You're a PSI user then?"

A loud scoff. Ninten turns his head away from Ness from his laid down position. "I was more than that. I was one of the greatest fucking PSI users in the world. I was a Goddamn hero."

Those words, so arrogant, so shallow, yet so meaningful. The sense of déjà vu overcomes Ness with the force of a car crash.

_So was I._

"What do you mean you were a hero?" Ness is surprised by how drawn back he sounds.

"Just what I mean. A HERO. Someone who saved the world. What, you need a dictionary or somethin'?"

"Cool it, asshole, I was just asking."

"Yeah, yeah I know...sorry."

Seemingly having hit a nerve, Ness becomes curious to what exactly Ninten did to earn his self proclaimed title of hero.

"So what did you do? Did you, like, go on an adventure or something? Fight baddies? Like, what?"

Ninten snorts pointedly. "You make it seem like some wonderful fantasy novel. Yeah, I did go on an 'adventure' with my best friends, I did fight bad guys, aliens 'n stuff, I visited cool places and met rad people..."

Ness can see where this is headed.

"...but guess what? As a 12 year old kid wandering the earth, I suffered. The monsters that attacked me didn't exactly tickle, they hurt me, so bad that sometimes I wanted to quit. And the worst part is..."

"...watching your friends go through the same..." Ness says, monotone.

Ninten nods, he had not expected Ness to understand. "Then there was everything else, the hunger, the humiliation..."

"...the thirst, the exhaustion..." Ness adds on.

"...the feeling of isolation, of loneliness..."

"...the homesickness..."

"...the physically and mentally draining battles with Goddamn massive aliens..."

"...the pain..."

"...the agony..."

"...the fear..."

"...and of course, all that work, all that training to become the strongest I could possibly be," Ninten's voice darkens. "To find out that none of it mattered against the final enemy..."

"An entity that could not be harmed, that would not stop until you are destroyed..." Ness rasps.

"And only through a miracle..."

"...did we survive the final battle."

Out in the open air of the realm, a thin wisp of red mist formed...

Ninten finally sits back up, staring at the stony face of Ness. "There's more to you than you're letting up."

"...that's 'cause I went through the same thing too." Ness's violet eyes were shimmering. "I know PSI. I was a hero. I saved the world too."

_But if Paula hadn't been able to beat Giygas..._

The red mist swirls and slowly begins to gain mass.

"They way you followed up all my thoughts, it's like you understood, and now I know why." Ninten says, downcast. "Was it tough on you too?"

"Yeah...I'm surprised I made it."

For a while the two young heroes did nothing, merely content with being in each other's presences, knowing they understood each other, and what they went through. There's much more in common between them than just appearance, despite coming from time periods millennia apart, making one wonder whether it is just some cosmic coincidence, or the work of something much bigger.

"...you really hit the nail on the head when describing my final battle," Ninten speaks up. "What'dya go through yourself?"

Ness freezes. The memory threatens to overcome him, he uses all his mental power to not remember. "I don't wanna talk about it."

The red mist grows larger and larger, tendrils of scarlet and black reach across the sky. The boys don't notice.

Ninten frowns. "C'mon, if it's like anything I went through, I'm sure you can tell me."

Ness shakes his head violently. "No, no I don't wanna..."

The monstrous scarlet formation begins to form into a spiral of sorts, pulsing and spinning, like some devilish creature made of some element that's neither gas nor liquid.

"Dude, you okay?"

His pajama covered body is convulsing slightly. "I-I'm fine."

The spiralling entity continues to grow in size. Streams of red matter reached out across the sky, darkening it.

"You don't look okay. Is it something about what you went through?" Ninten is obliviously curious.

"NO! No-no...no, don't wanna talk 'bout it!" The mental barrier is breaking, the memories are leaking back in. The sickening alien monster, the pain, the feeling of hopelessness...

Finally, in the middle of the massive spinning red, a figure begins to form. Gaping black jagged holes for a mouth and eyes, pulsing with life, stretching and contracting.

Then the entire world darkens into black.

Ninten springs to his feet. "What the..."

Then he sees it, and his eyes widen. An image too horrifying to describe, filling the entire horizon, swirling erratically.

"NO! NO STAY AWAY! STAY AWAY!"

While Ninten has poised himself to fight, Ness, still on his butt, has an arm in front of his face, which was absolutely dominated by fear.

An inhuman scream, baritone but inflicted with high pitched screeches, filled the air. The water churns, the sky pitch black.

Ness covers his ears, trying to shield himself from the terrible sounds.

"MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP!"

Wind whips around them, stirring up the fine sand, as the monstrous figure begins to talk.

"Ness...it...hurts...Ness..."

Ness whimpers and hides his face in his arms.

"I...it...h-u-r-t-s..."

As catastrophe reigns around them, Ninten can't shake the feeling that there is something familiar about this monster as he stares into the void that are its eyes.

Another anguished scream from Ness.

_He could feel his limbs being ripped apart, despite them being robotic. The pain was so intense he struggled make his soul stay conscious._

"Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness Ness."

"...Giegue? Is that you?"

_Jeff's screams, filtered through a mechanical voice box, echoes in his mind. Even Poo is unable to hold back his cries of pain._

"PLEASE...PLEASE STOP IT..."

"I...feel...g-o-o-d..."

"_Please...can anyone hear us? Please grant us power! Spread this prayer to all people of earth..."_

Then suddenly, through the raucous sounds of Giygas's and his own demented screaming, through the swirling wind and water, the sound of music travels deep into Ness's mind.

He turns around to see Ninten, calm as can be, with his hands together, head bowed and eyes closed, singing a song. He does not sing loud, yet the melodic tones seem to drown out all the other terrible racket of the world.

Ness is overcome by a calming and soothing sensation. The lyrical song pushed his despair and fear away from his mind, replacing it with a sense of warmth and nostalgia. The music, it seems so familiar, yet he is certain he has never heard it before. Halfway through, Ness joins Ninten and sings the rest of the tune.

"...raise your voices, all day long now love grows strong now

"Sing a melody, of love. Oh, love..."

The last thing Ness sees before his vision once again blacks out is the fading image of Giygas from the horizon, and the bright blue sky returning...

-01210-

"Hurry! Get him into the operating room! We need to stop the bleeding."

"Ness! Ness hang in there! Hang in there you hear me?!"

"Master Ness, stay with us! It surely cannot be your time yet!"

"Kids, we need you to stay out here, we'll get him fixed up."

"No, let me through! I can heal him with PSI!"

"Paula, let them do their job, he's suffered hemorrhaging to internal organs, it may not be in your best interest to try to patch him up lest you risk doing more damage..."

"...Ness..."

-01210-

Ness wakes up to Ninten's head hovering over him.

"Hey, man, you alright?" He asks, concerned.

Eyes half open, he manages a nod. Ninten moves away to allow him to sit up. Holding his head in discomfort, Ness observes he is still in the realm of sand and sea, and it is calm as ever.

"How long was I out?"

"Not that long, but like I said, being dead gives no good measure of time, so for all you know you could have been knocked out for years."

"Thanks for that, you dick."

"But seriously, how you feelin', man?"

Ness quietly groans, holding his head. "Headache... but that's not what I'm worried about." He looks straight into Ninten's brown orbs. "I think you owe me an explanation..."

Ninten blinks, then sighs. "I suppose I do."

And so Ness listens as Ninten speaks, as he recalls his adventure, how he met his great-grandmother in Magicant, how he learned the song that he had just sung, and why it had such an effect on the enemy. Ness learns of Giegue, what the alien being was like before his descent into Giygas, and how Ninten's great-grandparents affected the alien's life, and as it turns out, saved the world.

Through the entire tale, Ness is astounded by the similarities of Ninten's adventure to his own. He supposes it makes sense, considering the enemy they fought is the same, but nonetheless it amazes him how this alien Giegue was defeated by the mere memories of his surrogate mother. It is almost like a fairytale.

"How did your Giegue become our Giygas then?" Ness wonders. "According to you, there's a many thousand year gap in between his returns to earth."

Ninten shrugs. "Who knows, his whole species are PSI masters. Time travel certainly isn't out the question. For all we know a few thousand years could be within his lifespan."

A short silence.

"...to be honest, I feel kinda bad for Giegue. How he eventually broke down into that monster you faced. He died unrecognizable from his former self." Ninten's eyes travel up to the pure sky.

"I don't." Ness says harshly.

"I guess you wouldn't."

_Why should I feel bad for him? He's a part of the reason I'm dead now._

"Hey."

"What's up?"

"How exactly did you die? You said something 'bout getting shot in the stomach."

The old feeling of discontent and anger springs back up. "You wanna know how I died?" He says challengingly.

Ninten is unfazed though. "Yeah I do."

A bark of ironic laughter. "I died. Because the world I saved. Is full of ungrateful assholes who don't deserve to be saved."

As the anger builds up, Ness unleashes an entropic rant, wanting to let Ninten know just exactly how unfair everything is.

"I saved the fucking world. I go on a year long journey across the world, from Eagleland to Foggyland to Chommo to a freakin' floating town in the middle of the sky. I saved the fucking skins of God knows how many people who were too wimpy to hold their own against the aliens. Me and my friends were hailed as heroes!"

Ness sucks in a breath. "And you know how long that lasted? All of 4 fucking months! Then everyone forgets goes back to their lives, oblivious of just how close they came to getting their planet charred! But you know what the best part is? I wouldn't have cared, I was never the person to seek praise or attention. But then they started turning the world, _my _world, into some...corporate wasteland! My beautiful, quiet town, changed to a money obsessed business centre with money obsessed people who had about as much manners as a rock!"

He lets out another biting, almost maniacal laugh. "No, no you know what the best, best part is? How I died. I died trying to do something nice. Some stupid lady was getting her purse robbed, so I do the right thing and fought to get it back for her, after all, I'm a hero right? Well, not only did the lady not give shit for thanks, the guy I fought the purse back from? He shot me. He shot me right in the fucking stomach and there wasn't shit I could do to stop him. Isn't it fucking hilarious?"

He expecting Ninten to act shocked, pitying, angry, something along those lines. But instead a collected neutral face looks back at him, almost tauntingly.

"What a SOB story." Ninten says coolly.

Ness clenches his teeth. "You bastard...you of all people should know what it feels like and you're making fun of me!? How would you like to be put in my position then?"

"Because I know what it's like to be in your position already." Ninten says, suddenly as angry sounding as Ness. The pajama donned boy is taken aback. "You think you got it bad? Do you? You wanna know how I died?"

In the back of his mind, Ness feels a bit foolish to have never asked him that question. The coldness in Ninten's voice freezes him in his spot.

"In the years after the alien invasion from Giegue, the countries of my world began fighting. The invasion scared the whole earth, and everybody wanted more power to protect themselves with. But guess what ended up happening? They started fighting over resources, land, technology, and before I knew it, a fucking global war started, and guess who was caught in the middle?"

For some reason, Ness finds that it isn't hard to visualize a global war. Ninten's voice becomes more powerful, punctuating each word loudly.

"I tried to stay out of it. I tried to protect my friends, my girlfriend Ana, my mom and two sisters. And at first I thought I would be able to survive through the war. But then what happens? I get a bomb dropped on me!"

Ness is truly shocked by that. "...w-what?"

"You heard me!" Ninten screams. "It got to the point where the countries became dead set on straight up destroying each other! I remember seeing it on TV, the image of a city that had just been hit...hit with a n-nuclear missile..."

Ninten's voice is breaking up.

"Then reports came in f...from all over the world...retaliatory strikes across major cities..."

Ness does not want to hear anymore. The image is too vivid, too real for his liking. Eagleland possesses a massive and growing arsenal of nuclear weaponry.

"Then Loid calls me...tells me to get outta Podunk as fast as I can... I tried...I-I dragged my mom and sisters out of the house...but I could see it by then...the streak of white...th-the missile, heading straight for my town..."

Water is beginning to form at the corner of Ninten's brown eyes. Ness finds himself unable to move. Even though he can tell where the story is headed, out of morbid fascination, he keeps listening.

"Then it hits...I tried to protect them...I tried to 4th-D slip away...b-but I was too late...there was a flash of white...my sisters screaming...then everything went away..."

His voice gives way to sobbing, Ninten droops his head down, unable to continue.

_Why did this have to happen to you..._

Ness places a gentle hand on Ninten's shoulder, but as soon as it makes contact, Ninten jerks back up, grabs Ness violently by his pajama's collar, and yanks him close to his teary face.

"So don't you try telling me that you had a shitty end to your life..." He whispers shakily. "I had to watch my world...my world that I risked my ass to save...get blown up by the same people that I prevented from dying...everything was gone in less than a day. I get disintegrated by a nuke, and you have the balls to come complain to me aboUT A GUNSHOT TO THE STOMACH!?"

He pushes Ness hard, landing him back first back onto the sand. But Ness is too stunned to react. He just lies there, watching Ninten break down like he had. The image continues to swim around his brain. A small stream of white, heading straight into Onett airspace, slowly descending. A fish shaped warhead. An explosion, screams, a wave of white and red consuming everything in its path, heading straight for him, for his home, for his family...

_Is this really what has to happen?_

Ninten begins to settle down after a while, so Ness tries to console him again.

"Ninten, man. I-I had no idea. I'm truly sorry. I really am."

A sniff. "It's nothin'. I'm sorry for blowing up on you like that..."

Ninten's eyes are red and puffy, his black hair shaggy. His once confident disposition completely shattered.

_Is this what the world does to its heroes?_

"...I guess I should consider myself lucky." Ness says, more to himself than anything.

"Why?"

"Because my world is headed the way your world is." What a bitter realization that is.

"Is it really..."

Ness recalls the news report that came on one day as he lounged on the couch, eating his TV dinner. The statistics showing Eagleland's growth in economy and wealth. The border and labour disputes it became involved in because of its expansion. The buildup of armed forces in response to this.

Then he stepped out the door to see the skeletal structures that would become office buildings and new malls in his small, quiet suburban town. The dust was blinding, the noise deafening. But he didn't do anything about it. He didn't think it would lead to anything big. And now...he regrets not taking action sooner.

_I saved the world...for nothing. I'm a pointless hero._

"Yeah. It is. Sooner or later its gonna end up a giant crater." He says venomously. "Good riddance."

Ninten nods, apparently agreeing. "When my world ended, a small group of people survived Armageddon, and managed to rebuild a new world. The world you lived in. And it looks like its heading down that same ol' path."

Two end of the worlds in 2 thousand years. That must be a new galactic record for species wide suicide.

_I wonder if us human beings really are beyond salvation._

Then out of nowhere, a new voice breaks the tense, moody atmosphere.

"You know, when I recreated the world, I did not do it so it could get destroyed again."

The two raven haired boys immediately turn towards the new arrival. Ness watches this new boy walk slowly up to them. The most immediate feature is his hair, shining blonde, sticking up ducktail style in the front. Blue eyes that rivaled the sky's pure tone, pale skin, paler than either Ninten or Ness, wearing a striped yellow and red shirt and blue denim shorts. He looks to be around their age as well.

Ness is pleasantly surprised by this sudden new appearance. "Hey man, who are y-"

"Lucas."

Ninten does not sound very pleasant, but surprised nonetheless.

Ness tilts a curious head at this new kid. "Lucas. Is that your name?"

The blonde nods. "Yes. It's nice to meet you, Ness. And before you ask, yes, I'm dead as well."

"How did you get here?" Ninten demands. "What are you doing here?"

The boy named Lucas turns his furrowed eyebrows at Ninten.

"I'm here to get you two to stop wallowing in your own self pity." He retorts. Then he turns back towards Ness. "Because despite everything, I want to believe there is still hope for humankind. And I'm going to try to convince you two of that as well."

Ness merely blinks. Is there really hope left?

His mother and Tracy are still alive in his world. Paula, Jeff, Poo, they're all still there, still going about their regular lives. They are the kindest, most considerate, and most selfless people Ness would ever know. They do not deserve anything less than to live a full life of happiness.

They don't deserve for their world to come to an end.

_Can we really begin to learn from our mistakes?  
_


End file.
